January 2012 - Back in San Miguel de Allende - an incredible week

Gordon and Faye surprise us

Last Sunday started as a normal Sunday at breakfast with Barbara and David (we miss you Stan/Marcia and Kris/Cedric). Then we were off to the reception at my art show at Magenta Gallery. The show was hung and the guests were arriving.
Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw someone who looked like my cousin Gordon from North Carolina and my mind started playing games....where was I, where am I and how could Gordon be here without me knowing about it.  Then behind him came Faye and I knew where I was...all I could repeat over and over was "OMG" and I was jumping up and down and so excited. The story is that when I sent out the email announcement about this show they both looked at each other and said "Should we surprise Susan and Richard?" and they decided at that moment to come on down to SMA and join the fun. Both of Gordon's kids - Greg and family as well as Michelle have been here.

Good friends - Bob, Meredith and Andrea

So....what a great week it was for all of us. They stayed at a lovely B&B - Casa Maria and we managed to squeeze many activities into our busy schedule as well as delicious meals and breakfasts at Casa Maria.
The show was a great success and made us realize how many great friends we have here in SMA. Always fun to have our friends meet other friends.

Jose's birthday

David plays in concert

Other activities during our first few weeks here included a birthday party for Jose - our Spanish conversation teacher and friend and a music event by VIP Orchestre with David Ziff playing his sax.

First night of film festival with
Cindy and Ravi

The week was also filled as we volunteered with our friends Ravi and Cindy for the first "Satsang Film Festival". Richard was the tech person every night to turn on the movie - the most important job and I took tickets several times during the week.

Here is a sampling of some of our activities for the week including some usual and some new....yoga (both), new database creation volunteer work (R), acting classes (me), art classes (both), exercise with personal trainer (me), gym (R), data entry volunteer work (me), meditation (R)...whew. No wonder I am tired at night. Still need to figure out when to include Spanish conversation into this schedule.  We have a great house sitting opportunity now and another one in mid Feb to the end of March.

Many of you are wondering about our future plans this year. Here is the scoop. We will be in Mexico till early April (with a few side trips) and then to USA for the month of April. We will head to Spain for May and June to walk the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain. We are doing loads of planning and buying of lightweight supplies to carry in our new backpacks. Then back to US for July and back to Mexico for August. That is as far as the plan exists for the moment. Any ideas are always welcome for the future.

We are happy to be back "home" in SMA but we do miss all the friends we met during our travels in Ecuador and Peru. How blessed we are with so many swell "peeps" in our lives.